Alternate Epilogue COG
by XezleX
Summary: SPOILERS for COG! I wasn't very happy about the ending of COG. I think the epilogue CC gave should be the last chapter and there should be an epilogue that wraps it up more. Here's my version of that. Jace/Clary fluff. .


The baby's cries woke Clary in the middle of the night. She rolled over, blinking sleep from her eyes and grabbed the witchlight stone on the bedside table. She closed her fingers over it in an attempt to conceal its light. Easing first one leg over the side of the bed, then the other, she slipped from beneath the sheets so her feet were braced against the hardwood floor. Extracting her final hand from the bedclothes, she tiptoed across the room, skirting the pale shafts of moonlight that fell from between the curtains. Now for the tricky part. She'd just reached the double doors and begun to turn the knob when-

"Clary?"

Dang! So close!

"What are you doing?" Jace sounded sleepy and only mildly concerned. She sighed. Of course he'd heard her. Despite the stealth and grace ruins on her back and shoulder, he always seemed to wake up just as she reached the doorknob. Clary scowled.

"Just taking care of the baby Jace. Go back to sleep." She heard the sheets rustle.

"Mmmm-hmmm."

"Honestly. No invading demons or anything." She waited in the silence for a reply. Maybe he'd fallen back asleep. She was just finishing turning the knob when she felt a hand come down on her shoulder. Clary jumped, and heard Jace laugh quietly, his arms circling her waist from behind, warm and flecked with silver in the moonlight, and his breath tickled her ear.

"Really?" he whispered, "No demons?"

Clary leaned into him, feeling his heart beat steadily through her back. She turned to look at him, and saw herself reflected back in his golden eyes- leeched of their color by the moon. His hair was still messy from sleep, and she ran her fingers through it, remembering that first time, long ago, in another patch of moonlight. The heady scent of flowers perfuming the air. She leaned into his bare chest and smiled up at him.

"Well, maybe one demon." She conceded, "but I think I can take him."

He laughed and leaned down to kiss her lightly on the lips, this most casual of touches still making her nerve endings catch fire. It was something she still treasured. Like stepping into a warm bath, getting a new puppy, and jumping off a skyscraper all at once. His palms burned through the thin cami she wore and made her want to deepen the kiss, but a whimper from beyond the door told her that now was not the best time. Jace reluctantly loosened his grip and gave her a lazy smile.

"Guess I'd better let you get to it then. You know there's nothing that turns me on more than you killing things. Especially in the middle of the night."

And with that he set her loose, and Clary slipped into the hall to battle the demons at work.

The double doors opened into a short hallway, and she pushed open the next-door down. It led into a dark room, quiet except for the hungry cries coming from the crib in the corner. Clary smiled tiredly down at the baby, who gurgled happily when he saw her and waved his chubby fists in the air. She scooped him up in the crook of one arm and shouldered the door back open. Reaching the kitchen she set the glowing witchlight on the counter and lit a few candles, rummaging in the cabinets for powdered milk and a baby bottle.

"You never can sleep through a full night, can you Christopher?" she asked the baby, running some instant hot water into the bottle and setting it on the counter to cool. He "goo-ed" back contentedly, his blonde curls, so like his father's, shining a brilliant gold in the candle light. She touched the tip of his nose lightly with her finger, and he made a face at her that could only described as adorable. He was a comfortable weight in her arms as she mixed the milk into the water and screwed on the bottle's top, walking over to the worn wooden rocker, covered in a quilt, that looked so out of place in its position by the window.

Clary settled there quite comfortably, nudging the bottle in to Christopher's eager mouth. He sucked away greedily, closing his eyes in contentment as she ran her fingers over the pale, star-shaped mark on the back of his little hand.

"Christopher Alexander Lightwood, touched by an angel." She murmured, rocking a little and looking out over the moonlit spires of Idris's demon towers. No figures climbed, spider-like, up their sides. No demons poured through the streets of Alicante. They hadn't in nine years. Nine years since the death of her father and brother. Nine years since she'd realized that that brother wasn't, in fact, the man sleeping in their room down the hall. Christopher shifted in her arms, his green eyes drifting closed and his upraised hand falling from the side of the empty bottle. Clary looked down at him as he snuggled closer to her, and felt her heart swell happily in her chest.

A minute later the bottle was in the sink, the candles blown out, and the witchlight back in Clary's hand. She pushed open the door to the nursery, making her way between the stray toys left on the floor from the previous day. She gently lowered Christopher into his crib, and let her fingers linger on the runes of protection carved into the crib bars. She was about to turn away when a glint of silver caught her eye and she glanced down at where her son lay. His little fist was half-open, the muscles slack in sleep, and she could see a bit of black through the web of his fingers. A tiny figurine was clutched in his hand, dressed in shadowhunter black. She smiled at the three sets of initials carved into the fading silver of its tiny sword: J.W., M.L. and newly added, C.L.

Clary slipped from the room, a smile on her face and a single thought in her mind.

So the legacy continues… 


End file.
